Curtain Down on Srijan 2005

March 30, 2006

The Srijan 2005: Myriad Hues, has finally been released albeit unofficially! Whole of the Srijan Team met today in the evening and we circulated the copies of the Srijan amongst the team members. The joy that we felt cannot be expressed in words as it was reflected on the face of each of the member.

Kumar Ashutosh, the most vocal of all, who would blurt out whatever came to his mind exclaimed, “Oh! I feel so relieved as if I have delivered a baby after carrying it for such a long time!” How right he was! Is it not true that any writing process or for that matter any thing creative starts taking shape in the mind long before it is finally delivered. The anxiety and uncertainty of its being born, as conceived, is something that gnaws at the back of our very being all the time. And Ashutosh, these labour pains had to be severe for you as did you not carry triplets? English section, Hindi Section and the Arts section as well on your frail shoulders or may I say, in your slim tummy?

Varun Rajput was just ecstatic. He had a big burden off his head and I noticed with pleasure that his voice has improved a lot since the time that he came in my class in the first year. He was barely audible at that time. He would just whisper and I had to guess what he must be talking about! Since he is from Lucknow, I thought that it was the good manners of the Lucknow people that he represented by speaking in whispers and I didn’t want to show my bad manners to ask him to speak loudly. And how I suffered during his class seminar when he told us about his arduous train journey and I had to concentrate every little muscle of my ears to make any thing out of it! Thank God he had written about the same in one of the assignments and it made my job much easier to comprehend what he was speaking about. He stood so near to me on the dais, but still I had to exert so much. I really pity the other students in the class for tolerating him! The making of Srijan has done him lots of good. He has learnt the art of comprehensible speaking! Who says that as an Editor of Team Srijan you only hone your writing skills. Meet Varun and you will disagree with this long established convention!

Ah! Sanchit, the PR face of the magazine. You need to have a job done, just ask him. He will see to it. He is a born manager. I came to know about his managerial skills during my talks with Mr. Gagan, the printer of Srijan. “Sanchit would make my boys work for this magazine even when they were tired and off duty!” Praising our boys he would tell me, “Addressing them Bhaiyya, they would make the workers do the job happily.” Now this is what I call being a good manager. With his kind of persuasion he would sell ice to the Eskimos! I plan to have him as PRO for Srijan 2006!

Abhishek Tondon, the dedicated soul! I was impressed, no not the right word. I was moved with concern to see him work. It seemed that everything else except Srijan was secondary or tertiary to him! He didn’t even take lunch when all of us went out, by turns, to have ours. A person of few word, he believes in speaking less and working more. Abhishek’s prowess in both Hindi and English made him the cynosure of all eyes.

The way he worked at the Printing press made me worried that we would be losing an excellent Engineer in the making, as the printer had an eye on him. He thought him to be an asset for his establishment! How vigilant I had to be to save him from the clutches of a prospective employer. He really stood a fair chance of becoming a “Bonded Labour” for the printer! Abhishek’s prowess in both Hindi and English made him the cynosure of all eyes.